TC Laurence "Red Alert"

At 9pm last night we went onto "Red Alert" - Take Shelter. Cathy went and stayed at the hospital as part of the essential staff. At that stage TC was 100km away with winds of 220km/h and heading our way at 8 km/h.

However, the predicted trouble did not arrive. The TC promptly slowed and turned left. Twelve hours later (9am today) it was still 90km away!!!  It slowed (now doing 5km/h), turned left (almost running parallel to us) and weakened (winds up to 130km/h) . In Derby overnight, the strongest wind gust was less than 50km/h with approx 20mm of rain.

The Red Alert was downgraded to Yellow Alert at 9am.  Whilst winds are expected to pick up during the day, however, the destructive potential has now dramatically reduced.

All info sourced from the Bureau of Meteorology